After the plague and before the war…
by vieralynn
Summary: A 50 themes 1 sentence chronological exploration of an unexpected relationship that arises as a result of war and a search for peace.


_**After the plague and before the war…  
**_

**A/N: **This was originally written for the 1sentence community on LiveJournal (50 themes, 1 sentence each).  
**Warning: **Heavy abuse of punctuation to fit ficlets into single sentences.  
**Spoilers: **Alludes to game ending spoilers for Basch.

**#01 - Motion**

After the plague and before the war, Penelo and her adolescent girlfriends would scamper and chase under awnings and archways, running from doorstep to doorstep, giggling and spying as Captain Basch fon Ronsenburg walked through the east end of Rabanastre on his biweekly day of leave.

**#02 - Cool**

After the war, Penelo did not take much notice to the announcement of the princess's suicide but her body froze when she heard news on the street that Captain Ronsenburg had been executed.

**#03 - Young**

Safely back at Ondore's estate, Larsa assured Penelo that she would soon be reunited with Vaan and he was pleased to see her relief when she heard that Vaan was fine, yet Larsa curiously noted her reaction upon his mention that Vaan was traveling with a skilled warrior named Basch.

**#04 - Last**

Basch laughed at Penelo's pluck and how easily she teased Vaan, and he remembered that the last time he had laughed aloud had been many years ago.

**#05 - Wrong**

Basch often placed himself in harm's way during battle and Penelo used her position as the team's healer to conceal her affection for him, hoping that no one else caught on.

**#06 - Gentle**

Basch's companions thought of him as focused and intense, sharp and vigilant, driven and tactical, yet his words were kind when he spoke with Penelo.

**#07 - One**

When he said that he would bear any shame to protect just one person from the horrors of war, he knew that his words would be misconstrued as a noble ideal that a knight was expected to hold, but the truth of his words were as plain as what was before his eyes just a few yards ahead.

**#08 - Thousand**

He had seen thousands upon thousands die in the recent war and he could name many of their names and picture their faces, including her older brothers, her father, and her mother.

**#09 - King**

Basch had spent two decades living with the nobility, eventually finding himself all but accepted as a member of the royal family, yet he felt most at ease with commoners like himself and he easily developed a close friendship with Penelo.

**#10 - Learn**

Her curiosity was insatiable and she was quick to detect nuances that others often failed to see, but she was unsure of her own wisdom and tended to voice her observations to him as questions.

**#11 - Blur**

With a snap and a wizz and a blur and a distant thunk one hundred and fifty feet away, Penelo hit the center on her first training target; Basch ruffled her hair as she reloaded her new crossbow.

**#12 - Wait**

Penelo watched how still he would stand, remaining three quick paces behind the princess when she engaged in negotiations, and she wondered what could motivate someone to become nothing more than another person's sword and shield.

**#13 - Change**

Although known for his reticence, he spoke freely with her, and she enjoyed his wry humor, his love for old tales, and the mélange of historical and geographical facts he shared, but as time passed, it was the moments of silence they shared that reminded Basch of the things in life he had almost forgotten.

**#14 - Command**

Although he was a capable leader, she noticed that he ceded his command to Vossler and then later again to Balthier, and in these observations she learned more about him than he would plainly admit.

**#15 - Hold**

As the heavy snow fell and the wind began to howl, Basch held her carefully as if she were something delicate and wild that might suddenly take flight, or as if she were a holy relic that he had been entrusted to take to a distant shrine, yet she was merely cold and not a wild bird, nor a sacred artifact, nor would she have even minded if he had more earthy intentions, but then, that wouldn't be Basch, and this was why she found him appealing.

**#16 - Need**

In the dark of night, sometimes demons and ghosts would haunt him, plague him, curse him, and hold him down; if he cried out in fear, Penelo would soothe him in his sleep and chase away the foul host of specters.

**#17 - Vision**

Sometimes, when she thought no one else would notice, she would tilt her head and bite her lower lip and just watch him as he went about doing things that needed to be done as they set up camp, and one time he must have noticed because he looked at her and winked.

**#18 - Attention**

To a passerby she was no more than a guttersnipe girl traveling with a vagabond bearing minor resemblance to a fallen hero now fading from memory much like ghosts of the dead fade once they are left out of daily routine; as they walked among the refugees, no one over the age of twelve gave them even a passing glance.

**#19 - Soul**

He had cheated death and these phantoms knew it, never taking kindly to the fact that his heart still continued to beat; he knew Penelo sensed the ghosts that lingered around him, yet she protected him, and also, she trusted him.

**#20 - Picture**

Penelo thought, absentmindedly, about the heroic knight she had once imagined him to be back before Dalmasca had fallen; this man before her was fully human: a portrait of strengths and frailties.

**#21 - Fool**

He had led many young men into battle, wishing he could instead send them home so they would not need to face the consequences of war, at least not before age taught them about the responsibility they held at the tips of their blades; yet he never questioned the reasons that Penelo had joined them nor did he ever suggest to return her home to Migelo.

**#22 - Mad**

Certain combinations of sensations would trigger it --- the smell of familiar blood, the metallic sound of plated armor, the fear of being suddenly struck from behind --- and suddenly he would slip into berserker frenzy while in battle; she would do what she could to safely revive him or to disable him, and she never flinched when she did this.

**#23 - Child**

One night in Jahara he felt as carefree as a child when she asked him to dance while Garif musicians played a lively tune.

**#24 - Now**

The relationship that grew between them would have been unlikely at best had their lives not been interrupted by war, but war causes many unexpected things, and small joys are savored like wildflowers in bloom covering previously barren soil.

**#25 - Shadow**

After he had told her his own tale, even in the dark of night she could see the shadow of his brother hovering behind him.

**#26 - Goodbye**

With an innocent smile as she held a mountain rose in full bloom, she clipped its stem short and stuck it through a buttonhole in his shirt, not knowing about the last time he wore a bloom like this, nor for how many years he kept the dried petals in a tiny tin box near his bedside.

**#27 - Hide**

He made sure everyone's needs were cared for before his and when he was distracted by more important things, Penelo would sneak small bags of dried fruit and nuts into his pockets for him to find later.

**#28 - Fortune**

Basch knew he had been granted the blessings of a winged guardian who watched over him and granted him good fortune against Fate's steely blade.

**#29 - Safe**

As each person took their turn telling tales around the fire, Penelo drifted toward slumber and leaned her head against him; in the dim flickering firelight, no one saw his lips brush against her hair.

**#30 - Ghost**

Sometimes when she was close to him, she thought she could feel a faint ghostly touch of a caress or a kiss, but when she turned toward him, he would look at her with a hint of mischief and then act as if nothing were amiss.

**#31 - Book**

She had read aloud the story recorded in the map of his scars and sometimes when they were alone he filled in the gaps in the tale.

**#32 - Eye**

One balmy afternoon under the shade of a tree, her finger lightly traced the scar above his eye, and after she had rubbed a sweet smelling salve into it, she told him that with time even it will fade.

**#33 - Never**

He served as a knight because he loathed war, never once finding enjoyment in battle, and that is why Penelo adored him.

**#34 - Sing**

Sometime Basch sang old ballads about peaceful, idyllic lands, and other times he recited poems about women with the wings of a bird who protected men in battle and granted them luck when they were in most dire need.

**#35 - Sudden**

"Hey, Penelo, check this out!" Vaan said as he took Penelo's hand and enticed her to run; he liked Basch, but didn't want to see Penelo's heart broken.

**#36 - Stop**

At night, Penelo started to find excuses for curling up against his back or nestling against his arm and often he wanted to pull her very close, surrounding her body with his, but he never did because he knew he could not subdue the response it would summon.

**#37 - Time**

After a sleepless thirty-six hours through deadly terrain, everyone else slept while Penelo joined Basch on the first watch and in her exhaustion she absentmindedly kissed him, first on the shoulder, then on his neck, then once more on his cheek, and his breath caught in his throat as he nervously turned toward her, taken by the sensations as if it were something he was experiencing for the first time.

**#38 - Wash**

It was easy for him to play the role of the mentor when speaking with Vaan and Penelo; Vaan needed it, whereas for Penelo it was a carefully maintained wadi that safely channeled his affections, lest they run over and become a torrential flood.

**#39 - Torn**

Each time she used magic to heal him, she could feel the fabric of his life between her fingers, its jagged rips and tears, and the frayed threads hacked and abraded by serrated edges, but none of these injuries could be healed with mist, those knotted scars, those shameful regrets, those broken promises, those failed hopes.

**#40 - History**

When Basch watched Penelo and Vaan race across the hot sand and splash into the water he remembered how young she still was and the mistakes he had made when he was her current age, and in his desire to protect her, he wondered if it was best not to let her get any closer to him.

**#41 - Power**

Basch knew she was nervous around positions of authority because she understood that every major decision required choices about trade-offs and sacrifices.

**#42 - Bother**

One morning he knew that the innocence between them had been lost, and as they walked along the ocean shore, sand abrading the skin of his feet within his shoes, the fairy tale in which they had both sought solace had ended, and now he was nothing more than a man carrying the troublesome responsibilities of a kingdom and she was a woman who smelled of sea spray and wild flowers.

**#43 - God**

He knew he could no longer blindly support the princess, and not at all if she chose a path of revenge, and he realized that so many of his old beliefs were slipping away like grains of sand falling between one's fingers; all he had left to believe in was his desire to protect the people of Dalmasca, and he held Penelo in his arms when as he said this.

**#44 - Wall**

No other barriers stood between them except that he was living as the ghost of a man who had returned to repay his debts, and although he failed to see what lay ahead in his own future after the threat of war had been abated, she had confidence that they would find a path beyond this last barrier and she asked him to believe it.

**#45 - Naked**

Penelo could visualize nearly every inch of his body; clinically, she had seen nearly all of him.

**#46 - Drive**

It pained her to watch the twins confront one another, reliving old injuries that had motivated their actions year after year after year.

**#47 - Harm**

"Thank you for being so brave and for protecting Basch and his brother," Penelo said as she squeezed Larsa without hesitation and rubbed her nose in his hair while holding back tears of relief.

**#48 - Precious**

Penelo's hand and eyes were busy the first time she co-piloted the Strahl, but when he spoke as Judge Magister Gabranth and ended the war, her heart sank because she knew her time with Basch had ended.

**#49 - Hunger**

She watched as Larsa began to help Basch encase himself in the armor of a judge magister and just before they began to fuss with the heavy plates that would form a hard, protective shell around his upper body, she ran to him and held him tightly, ever so tightly, and although he knew what she wanted to say, he stopped her from saying it; yet, in their kisses and in the patterns that their fingers traced upon each other's skin, they plainly spoke their thoughts, but none of this sated her desire to remain at his side.

**#50 - Believe**

Hearing news of impending civil war in Archades, she fretted throughout the night while fearing for his safety and promptly wrote Larsa to request that Basch return to Rabanastre and their Queen, but deep down she knew he would stay there; she forced herself to believe that he would not meet the same fate as her family and that she would someday see him again.


End file.
